Perspectives on the beautiful game of soccer; fueled by enormous amounts of coffee

Sunday, February 17, 2008

Hey! Must be the money

A Galaxy teammate, speaking on Ty Harden's retirement:

If you really look at it, it’s where we are in the evolution of our league. The reality is that a smart young guy can take a look at things and say, "I can build my professional career right now, or I can continue playing soccer, not making as much as I would in the business world and have to start over when I’m 30, 35." I think that’s just the reality now. If you look at other sports, and you have these young guys who come out, they have the aspiration to sign that big contract. That allows some buffer time when you do retire to be able to figure things out. You have a lot more leeway and opportunity to do things. A young guy, a smart guy like Ty Harden, decided to choose a different path. For him, it was a personal decision and I think all the guys here respect the decision that he made.

still doesn't make complete sense to me. It's not like he's playing for free. I also don't know a ton of soccer players (or any athletes) who went to school to be engineers or some other career that pays bank immediately upon graduation. It also assumes one knows they aren't good enough for even a lower league in Europe, which many thought Harden might be one day. Also Klein neglects to realize most people have a change in career when they are in their 30's so it's not like starting a new career in your 30's is all that odd.Harden aside, the league does need to improve salaries. Hard to imagine it won't increase significatnly at the next CBA negotiation.